The Brooklyn-based band White Hills recently returned for a second visit to WFMU, laying down a devastating follow-up to their April 2007 appearance. This most recent performance included two songs from the new self-titled album that was recently released on Thrill Jockey, as well as a song from their second full-length Heads On Fire and one from their split release with The Heads.
It was back in 2005 when White Hills attracted the attention of Julian Cope and his Head Heritage web site: a track from the band was included on the Due To Lack Of Interest, Tomorrow Has Been Cancelled sampler CD alongside Comets on Fire and Temple of Bon Matin, among others. They went on to release their first full-length, Glitter Glamour Atrocity, in early 2007 and made their first appearance on my show shortly thereafter.
It seems silly to try to write a description of White Hills's music when there are links just pixels away that you can click on to hear them for yourself. But, in this short attention span world I will entice you to click those links by quoting writer Ben Graham, who called their sound a "glam-tinged fusion of Stooges, Hawkwind and Can" on the UK music site The Quietus earlier this year. He adds:
"[T]he bruisingly heavy 'Three Quarters' [...] is White Hills at their most bleak and nihilistic, with Dave coldly chanting "We don't care, she don't care, they don't care, no-one cares," over the band's patented Stoogewind riffing, exploding midway through into a raw Ron Asheton style solo. Many bands of course attempt this type of music, but few pull it off with the power and freshness achieved here. There's no stodge, no drag- this shit is lean and dangerous."
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